Man Believes He Was Victim Of Dangerous ‘Knockout Game’

Columbus resident Joey Pastore says he believes he was a victim of the “knockout game” and was on the losing end of it.

Pastore said he was walking along N. High Street when he was attacked.

“There’s people on High Street and there’s people behind me,” Pastore said. “It was just all of a sudden, there was this one spot where there was nobody.”

He said that he was punched, and then a man ran away. Disoriented and at night, he said he was unable to get a good look at his attacker.

“I kind of felt like someone to my right, and as soon as I turned to look, he just punched me as hard as he could and took off,” Pastore said.

He said he was not robbed.

“I had money on me, my iPod. I had headphones on me. I had my cell phone on me.”

Pastore said, at the time, he felt like his face exploded in blood.

A passerby helped him to a nearby restaurant, where they helped him call for emergency response.

He spent days in a hospital with a broken nose, black and blue eyes and several surgeries.

“I lost so much blood that they said that the type of blood that you lose is usually from severing a limb, getting an arm or leg chopped off,” Pastore said.

He said he still does not know why he was hit, but said a responding police officer said he had an idea of what it may have been.

“Someone said to me, ‘It sounds like the knockout game.’ To which I said, ‘What’s that?’” Pastore said.

Around the country, people are taking people’s lives into their own hands for a tiny thrill, blow by blow.

“You know, I wasn’t robbed. I wasn’t stabbed. I wasn’t shot. I wasn’t killed,” Pastore said. “And then after all of this traumatic stuff, I thought, ‘Man, I came so close to death and the guy who punched me had no idea how close he came to killing me.’ I know they think it’s a game, but I just want them to realize it’s not a game.”

Pastore said he is hoping that people who hear his story become more aware of their surroundings.

Federal officials' review of the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old black man by a white police officer as he carried an air rifle in an Ohio Wal-Mart remains unfinished as his relatives plan a rally and vigil to mark one year since his death. Get the story.

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